Napier's Christman Tree

In the centre of Napier we have a rather unconventional Christmas Tree.  It's not received universal acclaim in the City.  I rather like it but we have been lucky enough since it was erected to have had plenty of sun to show off its reflective surfaces.  It would be rather uninteresting on a dull day.  One problem is that the sun is so bright it can be hard to see the colours.  In order to photograph the colours I had to stop the camera down to the maximum and reduce the shutter speed to 1/2000 of a second.

 

Fraser

Fraser (third son of Wendy and Martin) is quite an amazing person.  He is quite dedicated to something if he really wants to be.  He spent a week on holiday once constantly (and I mean constantly) attempting and then perfecting a single gymnastic move because he knew that he should be able to do it to a very high standard. 

On the other hand his concentration can be completely non-existent.  We were all having dinner at The House one evening last week when Fraser looked up and suddenly said, in all seriousness, to the table in general "When did Graham come in?"  I'd been there in the same room as him for about half an hour before dinner and we were about 10 minutes into the meal and I was sitting next to him!  And he was completely serious.

And for Christmas he made his Dad a Christmas Card which contained a considerable amount of time and effort:

A Very Big Thank You

I could go on blogging about my trip to Northland for weeks and I may yet do that.  The time has come, however, to tell you about a magical evening walk.  It is one thing seeing places on a blog.  It's entirely another to walk around those pictures and experience them for one's self.  Which is what I did on a beautiful Sunday evening before I flew back South from Northland.  This was the wonderful culmination of a really wonderful weekend.  A weekend in which I was fortunate enough to experience Pauline's hospitality and a share of her knowledge of the area she knows so well.  For all that - a very big thank you.

The Uppity Downity Mountains from the other side: the view before breakfast

 

The Vodafone Tower which was the point of focus for my time in Northland.

 A granddaughter with a love of speed

 and scrambling

 The Creek

 On the far side of The Farm

 

 

Granddaughters and horses (there's an electric fence between them).

A Certain Theme

There seemed to be a certain theme running through my presents:

 

Christmas Came and Christmas Went

As I start writing this posting it is 4pm on Sunday 27th. Where did Christmas go?  It's no secret that I am not a Christmassy person.  I never have been for as long as I can recall.  Well, perhaps that's not quite true.  I looked forward to Christmas at my maternal grandparent's who lived a quarter of a mile from us when CJ and I were  young children.  But at the time about which I am talking CJ might not even have been born.  I was really keen on Christmas principally because my hero used to come and visit.  In my memory he always did but, of course, memory playes tricks.  My hero was my Mother's Brother, Uncle Eric.  In a funny sort of a way he remained my hero until he died about 6 years ago.

Anyway this year the two youngest children and Misty came down to The Cottage at 7.45 to summon me up to the House for 8am to open Santa's stockings.  It's great.  Santa brings us all a stocking. - even I.   Well  I  suppose that I have been quite a good boy this last year.

Before Christmas Wendy put up some decorations including a Santa which Catriona immediately declared to be Santa Graham because, in her view, it looked like me.  Hmmm.  I'm not too sure about that.

 

 Inevitably I felt that I had to recored events for posterity:

 

I won't have to borrow Santa's needle and thread again to sew buttons on.

Misty decided not to be left out

The children received 'family' gifts.  The air hockey was my favourite

but by far the biggest hit - worth it's weight in occupied children - was the Big Band experience for the Play Station 2

of course Fraser, being Fraser, couldn't just scoot along the ground

and under the flawless blue sky

Martin cooked breakfast and we drank bucks fizz.

The School Bus Driver Calls

Yesterday morning Mrs Duncan came down the deck with heavy tread.  Well, actually, you don't have to have a heavy tread.  If you are wearing shoes anyone walking along the deck sounds heavy.  Anyway there was Mrs Duncan, the school bus driver, at the door bearing flowers.  "Odd" I thought "Why would Mrs Duncan be bringing me flowers?"  And that was exactly the same thing that the children wondered.  I managed to keep them wondering for most of the day and evening until, when we were having dinner (I catered for the family on Wednesday), Wendy who was not, of course, likely to take anything in this world for granted, read the card and broadcast the results.

In actual fact Mrs Duncan, in addition to driving the bus, delivers flowers for some of the local florists.  Mystery solved.

The flowers are magnificent and now stand on my table in a vase most suited to them.  The scent they are throwing into the room this evening now all the doors are shut for the night is strong and heady and redolent of long summer evenings.  Which is just as well given that that's what it's like here.

 

 

In actual fact the flowers were a gift from Friend Who Knows Too Much  and who, therefore, knows that I love flowers.  I know that she'll be having a wonderful Christmas with Airplane Mad Partner  (He's actually even more mad about a particular football team but tif I mentioned that it would give the game away) and Daughter Who  Loves Horses and Very Artistic Daughter (who sends me the most outrageous Christmas and Birthday cards showing little respect for my grand age).  They are all in England at the moment and, in contrast, to our midsummer they were making a snow bear as I received the delivery.  

Peacocks and Turkeys, Northland

It never occured to me that Peacocks and Turkeys might roam wild in New Zealand.  But then I'd never been to Northland before!

Waitukei Sculpture, Rotoua

  

 

 

 

It's a Small World

Last September CJ, Jo and I went to Carr Farm and in a gift shop there saw some metal artworks.  I had never seen them before and wsa very taken with them and bought one which now sits in my Eagleton home on the outside of the bathroom door.  CJ was very taken with one particular one of some fish - it's the last one on his post (see Carr Farm above).   When I was in Nautical Trenz in Whangarei Town Basin last weekend I saw exactly the same fish artwork that CJ had fallen in love with.  So there you are.  Travel from one side of the globe to the opposite and you can buy exactly the same unusual piece of artwork - made somewhere in between no doubt.  It is a very small world these days.

The Town Basin, Whangarei

It seems hardly possible that a week has passed since I was staying in Northland and a week and two days since I took these pictures in Whangarei.  How time it doth pass so quickly.  These were taken in the Town Basin in Whangarei.

The large and the small

 

Whilst there's nothing new in a group of new 'old' shops on the water front these have been very well done and there is a superb gift shop called Nautical Trenz (of which more later)

 

I love the detail and superb quality of this public bench

 

 And every public place has to have a clock - especially for Scriptor there is a blue post box next to the red and grey one at the base of the tower